/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12513364
Still not worth using for take-off which was its only/main selling point (and the main/only way to get it up there at all). You don't want it to be expandable and it can't land.

It can be used more safely in interplanetary space but mostly once you are safely away from important stuff/orbit and the only (early) source of pulse unit will be Earth.
By the time we need interstellar travel we are likely to have found much better design.

There's a big difference between
- Slowly detonating one nuke-pulse with plenty time to fix any problem and recalibrate.
and
- Continuous nuke-pulses or you'll crash with a full load of nuclear bomb.

>>12513377
The system to get it past the pusher plate is far more important and difficult than just making a catapult and a trap door. You don't want it to fail or get stuck in any position you are not aware off or give erroneous feedback. Since it have to be lined up you can hardly just double it.

The nuclear pellets will need to be finely shaped because they are supposed to produce a directional explosion and not leave behind debris. Directional explosion will require the pulse unit to be strong enough to shape the explosion, this is also why other pulse candidate prefer to have unit/pellet explode in a shield that contain the explosion better.

You'll prefer to be able to prevent/fix accidental rotations, correcting the exact positions/attitude because the ship shouldn't have to leave behind unexploded pulse unit.
Just storing nuclear material knowing you want it to be as small and light as possible is complicated.

All nuclear engines have problems and subtlety, but this one have the memetic hazard of making people believe they can throw their problems away and detonate them behind a safe shield in one SSTO package despite being at least equally harder than every other engines.

> and unlimited thrust
Now you are being silly

>>12513454
See above. Same for cruise. By the time we care we will likely have better candidate.

>>12506782
Orion is overrated,
Fans mostly like it because it look simple and it trigger their wish for a cheap & cool engine held down by evil red tape. Not because it would actually be practical.
Even if you dismiss the silly idea of using it for take off from the surface it would be at least as complicated as any other conventional engines except with a bigger starting size, less room for redundancy and many other limitation.

It cannot be throttled easily, it have a single point of failure, it would be extremely dangerous to use in any orbit with important infrastructure, it will generate lot of radioactive debris near planets unless you manage to have unrealistically perfect conversion bombs and refueling it require to be able to produce said nuke.

All in all, you are better investing in nuclear thermal engine capable of using ISRU for refueling.

>>11845422
Excuse me I got busy soon after posting.
Space tug are for the occasion where you need something that maneuver faster than a 100000 tons carrier-ship/cargoship.

Take your satellite, can it "rendezvous" by itself? (with all the orbital change)
Do you have the large cargo ship waste a lot of its fuel moving it up? Or do you just use a smaller craft use less fuel for that.

You say ice-fueled so I'm assume nuclear propulsion (a rather big tug), it come with a lot of restriction (you can't accidentally point your radiation toward the wrong direction).